Thursday, October 28, 2010

An essential petticoat

The first time I wore this new cocktail dress was at a standing cocktail function; and all was hunky dory. Felt a million bucks and the dress was perfect. The second time I wore it was to a sit-down lunch and fashion parade at a fancy restaurant here, and a vitally important design flaw in this dress immediately made itself apparent. I won't embarrass anyone with any pictures, but the above picture with my new petticoat worn under the dress should give you some idea of the problem I faced... luckily I was out just with my own husband who could see the humour in the situation, and also luckily there was the tablecloth as well as a huge white serviette draped over my lap the whole time I was seated...!This cocktail dress is really lovely and I am super happy with it, but I should have foreseen this. I actually couldn't believe it myself that I had simply not sat down in the dress up until that point and realised...! The pattern is really a coat-dress, and has closure only at the waistband, and one button a little further down at about hip height on the inside flap. Naturally there was going to be gape-age...!So I bought some silk satin and made a petticoat, using an old standby sundress pattern Burda 8071. I do already have a selection of petticoats, but since this one would undoubtedly slip into view when wearing this dress, I wanted it to match and blend in perfectly, and obviously be of a perfect length. For this reason I spent some time getting the hem length exactly right. The petticoat sits just 2cm shorter than the dress. The shoulder straps are of satin ribbon, and are adjustable. Though unfortunately the only lingerie fittings I could find are these from Spotlight, which are just not very good... if I could find another range somewhere I would definitely swap them over. Anyone know of a good supplier of lingerie fittings?Viewing the petticoat modelled here by Bessie, you can see how much bigger than me she is. The petticoat actually fits me perfectly, but I can barely squeeze it over Bessie's hips, and as for doing up the zip, well no way Jose. Even here it is stretched as tight as. Having her is wonderful and certainly makes my sewing life much easier, but fine-tuning the fit of a garment is always something I have to do on myself, obviously!

I have found Lincraft to have better lingerie bits and bobs than Spotlight. I have ordered bits from boobytraps.com.au Not everything is on their website, but they are very helpful when you ring them up.

Beautiful solution! I find it interesting that years (decades?) ago, women always wore slips (that's what we call them here). Now we all seem to prefer inserting a lining to avoid wearing the slip. I wonder why.

OOPS! I would have been really upset about that incident. Did you contact the pattern company and tell them? They should include text that says that you need a beautiful slip underneath.....unless you want to stand in heels for the rest of your life!

Great dress (and gape solution) Carolyn. I had the same problem trying to find strap adjusters. I tried Spotlight a couple of times and finished up buying some I wasn't really happy with but then found some in Lincraft. They were smaller and came in a couple of different colours.

I hate wrap clothes that come unwrapped! I've lived in windy places for all but four years of my life (Salt Lake City has v. soft breezes - but the skies are always dead boring) and am wary of being stripped! I'm very excited by this post though! The coat dress is gorgeous in spite of its flaws, but what is really cool is that I now have an excuse to buy a sundress pattern in spite of winter approaching here! And a use for some really luxurious fabric in spite of not having a glamorous lifestyle! Thanks so much for this idea!!

I hate wrap clothes that come unwrapped! I've lived in windy places for all but four years of my life (Salt Lake City has v. soft breezes - but the skies are always dead boring) and am wary of being stripped! I'm very excited by this post though! The coat dress is gorgeous in spite of its flaws, but what is really cool is that I now have an excuse to buy a sundress pattern in spite of winter approaching here! And a use for some really luxurious fabric in spite of not having a glamorous lifestyle! Thanks so much for this idea!!